Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

As we come to the end of our first term for the 2024 year I am very pleased with how the school is tracking both in terms of teaching and learning and it's overall health.

Teachers and faculty leaders have done an excellent job of embedding the Cambridge curriculum alongside of our NCEA offerings. This has taken a lot of planning and hard work and I am very proud of the way in which our staff and students have stepped up to the challenge. In a recent survey conducted with the year 11 students, they fed back to us that although it was a challenge, they are enjoying the structured nature of the courses and have improved in areas such as personal time management. I believe that if we expect a lot from our young people, they will deliver.

I would like to thank the staff and students for their efforts this term. Our staff have supported students in retreats, milestones within their spiritual life such as confirmations, artistic and sporting events. We have also hosted a brilliant group of young international students and gappers, thanks to the tireless work of June Campbell and our ODENZ agent May Britt Christiansen. Thank you to the hostel staff, our wonderful learning assistants in the Ako Hub and our dedicated grounds and admin staff.

You all make our College the dynamic, warm and hopeful place that it is.

I have included a picture of our grotto which has recently had its original lighting reinstalled in time for ANZAC Day.

Have a safe, restful and happy break.

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

This is feeling like a very strange 'end of term one' as we approach the holidays after having two, three day weeks. Next week students may find it tough going to school for the final week as they are all getting very tired and Covid is certainly making its rounds. I do encourage you all to 'hang tough' until the holidays as we rely on terms one and two for laying the foundations of our learning for the year.

Last week our Student Council met for the first time this year. They were tasked with giving feedback on a number of issues. One of these was the amount of time students miss in term one for sport. This has been a topic of conversation with our Senior Leadership Team as we are pulled between giving students as much in - class time as possible, with the need to also develop all round students with the ability to work in teams, develop their physical and sporting capacity and learn the skills they will need to be good citizens. As parents, you are best equipped to judge how well your student is coping with the demands of their school work, any extra employment they have and sport. Please do not be afraid to let coaches and sport staff know if you are concerned about your student's ability to manage all of the demands on their time.

It is ok for caregivers to say 'no' to sports or sporting events for which your students may have been selected. If this is done in a timely manner and with good communication, teams can manage. I am also personally not afraid to turn down sporting opportunities if families feel that their students are being disadvantaged in the classroom. Whilst I value sport and the opportunities it can provide, I also ascribe to a 'balance is better' approach. Most of our students will have all of their lives to play sport, the same cannot be said for making the most of their very plastic young minds in terms of their academic ability at this stage of their lives.

I hope Easter was a blessed time for you and your family

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

Today I thought I would write about our new study periods and the thinking around these. This year, because we have moved to a ten day time table and because we are introducing Cambridge at Year 11, we have made the conscious decision to allow regular study time in the timetable for all students in Years 11,12 and 13.

The thinking behind this is as follows:

We are trying to focus assessment on doing five subjects well rather than six subjects in an average manner. We believe that study periods will enable students the time to consolidate their learning.

We are aware that the Cambridge course does signify a significant step up in terms of the pace of learning required and the academic language used compared to NCEA. We feel that it is only fair to extend study times to Year 11 students to give them the best chance of passing these examinations.

Finally we are also very aware that many of our students are working after school and on the weekends. We are therefore trying to make purposeful space in our time table to ensure that homework and independent learning is done without students having to choose between work and study. We are aware that many families are struggling and students working in after school employment enables them to support themselves, thereby relieving family financial pressure.

We do ask however, that all families carefully balance the commitments your students are taking on. Whilst we fully support young people in work, sports and cultural endeavors as a school our main focus is academic achievement. A balance is required in order for students to attain the best grades they can. If families need support in talking to your young people about this, please speak to our Deans who are happy to help.

Best of luck to our cricketers for the weekend

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

Today we have been fortunate to have struck a beautiful day for Athletics. Athletics day is an opportunity for all of our students to have fun, compete and support each other. It is the first opportunity in the year for students to compete in their house teams and for younger students to get the feel of what being in the secondary house competition is like. It is also their chance to show us what they can do. I saw some very speedy year 9 participants today and am feeling that there are some champions among them!

Speaking of which, we are very proud of our rowers this weekend who are competing at the NZ Rowing Champs . I wish everyone the best of luck for their events.

Over the holidays I sent out two forms, one asking for feedback regarding the strategic plan and another looking at the phone policy. I have sent the results of the phone policy survey back to families to let you know how that shaped up for us and what the policy is that we have set with regards to phone use at SKC. These should be in you e mail in boxes this weekend.

With regards to the 'not so exciting' idea of strategic planning, thank you to those of you who did give feedback. On Tuesday night, we also took the opportunity of holding our 'meet - the teachers' evening to gauge new families' ideas around our strategic direction. I would like to thank all of our new families for their input into the discussion around this. We are collating the information and will feed that back to families once it is through.

Our year 9's are due to have an election for student council this term. The Student Council provides vital student voice for our strategic thinking so if you have a young person whom you think would contribute to this, please encourage them to stand.

Wishing everyone a great weekend, especially the hostel who are away on their annual lakes trip.

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

Although it has been a very short week, a lot has happened since Wednesday. We began the week by welcoming all of our new students into the College, both new year 9's and students who have joined us from other secondary schools. Our day began with a mihi whakatau in our school auditorium which was well attended by families. I would like to thank those of you who were able to make it to this event. It is always great to see parents and caregivers at our College celebrations. Pictured on the school steps below are our year 9 cohort for 2024 and Mr James Devereaux, their Dean.

After the day spent in administrative matters on Wednesday, it was straight into classes on Thursday and aside from a few computer glitches, it was a good start. Cue today and we finished our week with the investiture liturgy for our prefect school leaders. Our focus for the liturgy was the idea of leadership as working for the common good.

Next week, we have our Dominican Excellence awards on Tuesday the 13th and that night our 'Meet the Teacher' event for year 9 parents. This year we are hoping to use this opportunity to gather family input on our strategic direction as well as provide the opportunity for families to let us know what is important for you as you begin your journey with us. We look forward to seeing you there.

Have a great weekend

God Bless

Jo 

Principal's Comment

Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

I had planned on starting my blogging year with a gorgeous picture of my wee granddaughter being baptized, but today's adventure on the bucket truck knocked that one off poll position because it lends itself to too many metaphors to be ignored!

The staff and I are fully aware that this year will be in equal parts trying, exciting, challenging, exhausting and in all measures fairly unpredictable.... With a change of government we are beginning to see a new paradigm emerge which has started already with the 'phones in school' debate and the signals around curriculum which are being sent. On top of the changes this will bring, we also have the introduction to the Cambridge system at IGCSE level, our ongoing strategic planning work with St Joseph's School and we are continuing with building our Alumni programme.

I am looking forward to the year, but as I signaled at the end of last year, I do expect we will run into a few hiccups along the way and I ask for our community to support us as we work through these. We appreciate your feedback and to that end I have sent out two surveys this week which I would appreciate if you would take some time to answer.

So back to the bucket. This week I heard Adrienne Spillane from St Joseph's School share a wise piece of advice about being at the bottom of something and not being able to see the top, but climb to the top and you can see it all. I thought of that today in the bucket truck, and noticed that 1, we need to paint the roof of the gym and 2, how many people were moving around the grounds setting up for the year ahead and 3 , How accessing a different perspective on things really helps us to appreciate what is going on in a wider sense than our own.

'Team SKC' past and present is a great team. I extend an invitation to all of you to join by engaging with us. Join the Alumni, come to social functions, coach and manage teams, volunteer for Te Ngakau Nui, join the Foundation, stand for the Board, come to Mass, or just pop in for a chat. In this way we can look at our community from different perspectives and we can build amazing young people who have the ability to do that same thing.

Keep an eye out for Mr Devereaux's fb post regarding start up procedures and as always please check the website for all of our start of year details.

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

As we head into the final week I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff and supporters of SKC for all of their work. This year has been challenging in many ways and in more than equal parts, very satisfying in others.

We could not do any of what we do without our supporters including sports and cultural coaches, our Te Ngakau Nui Team, our Foundation and Hostel Trust. I would especially like to thank our School Board and our presiding member Eugen Dupu for their stewardship of the College.

Next year, we are looking forward to our Year 11 Cambridge trial, the introduction of our Marine Biology course at Year 12 and to welcoming a new group of Year 9 students into the College. Added to this we will also continue to work alongside St Joseph's school to plan next steps for Catholic education in North Otago.

As exciting as it is to look forward, I am sure that our whole community is anticipating a restful summer break. Fingers crossed for sunshine!

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

The last week has been all about transitions as we welcomed our Year 9 cohort for 2024 and said farewell to many of our senior students who finished their final NCEA examinations ever!

We have had a very settled couple of weeks with juniors sitting examinations for the first time in several years. For many of our young people, the examination process can be quite intimidating which is why we feel it is extremely important for them to be 'trained' into sitting examinations from Year 9.

Under the Cambridge system as well as the new NCEA standards, all students will have to achieve results in exam conditions. Parents and caregivers can support students by doing the following:

Prior to examinations

• Identify times and places where study can happen
• Talk to your students about what they need to learn
• Help support your student by testing their knowledge, this can be done using flash cards, orally asking questions or speaking to them about relevant topics, or even hanging a poster on the back of the toilet door!
• Finding out when the examination is and planning to arrive in plenty of time
• Ensuring they have the appropriate equipment eg pens, rulers etc

After examinations

• Ask about areas where your student felt they did well
• If they failed an exam, speak about this as a learning opportunity and help them to identify what changes they need to make to approach an examination in the future.

As we approach the final weeks of the year, it is important that we stick to routine as much as possible so that we finish in a settled and positive manner.

I was thrilled at the positive and professional manner in which our volunteers welcomed our new students on transition day this week. It was great that we had far more volunteers than we needed and I hope that our new recruits felt that they were welcomed.

Have a great (and hopefully sunny) weekend

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

This week the serious business of examinations has continued at the College with NCEA assessments following on from the CAA or Common Assessment Activities which our junior students sat last week. CAA's are the tests of literacy and numeracy that need to be passed in order for students to qualify for NCEA certificates. Students who sit complete NCEA Level 1, 2 or 3 courses in New Zealand from this year forward will not be eligible for the certificates unless they have passed both the literacy and numeracy CAA's, no matter how many 'credits' students may collect. This system is replacing the old 'literacy and numeracy standards' where certain standards across the subjects qualified as literacy and numeracy 'rich' enough to qualify the students as being literate and numerate.

At this stage with the refresh of the NCEA standards at Level 2 scheduled to launch, we are not sure how the literacy standard for university entrance will look. Previously, if students sat certain literacy rich standards at Level 2, they collected enough credits (10) to count as having 'university entrance literacy requirements'. This week, the Senior Leadership Team has been undertaking course counseling with our year 10 cohort with regards to the Cambridge trial for 2024. Under the Cambridge system, students qualify for NZ universities if they have three AS or A level passes as the literacy requirement is built into these. Most of our students have been keen to give Cambridge papers a go as well as mixing in some NCEA at Year 11.

In whatever systems students are working, anywhere in the world, the difference between success and failure is attitude and well established learning behaviours such as time management, note taking, revision techniques and prioritizing. If you feel that you would like some help to establish these sorts of routines with your young person, don't hesitate to get in contact.

Today, I have included a picture of Lorenna with her 'Remembrance Day' garden. In 1945 President Harry Truman called upon American citizens to observe November 11th as 'Armistice Day' which both honors those who have died in war and those who continue to attempt to build peace.

Have a peaceful weekend.

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

 Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

I would like to begin this week by thanking the numerous supporters of the College who have been in touch with my staff and myself this week to offer support in the wake of the newspaper headlines we have had to deal with. Your support, your rational approach to the facts and your maturity in understanding that we have complaints systems which provides clarity and fairness of process, gives me great peace. I would also like to thank the staff of the College, who despite the reputational and personal risks to themselves, continue to support students to head into the outdoors, many for the first time in their lives, in a culture that seems to be keen to pretend that life is a zero risk game. Our investigation into our camp is due to be completed by next week. There will be a procedure for sharing that information with parents which will be communicated in the coming week.

It has been a week also of celebrations as we said farewell to our Year 13 cohort and some of our Year 12's at senior prizegiving. As usual Simba was stealing the show, and despite some technical issues, the night went very well. I thought our Top 6 dance was fantastic and it was very special to see Eugen Dupu, our Presiding Member graduate his last daughter Lena. The biggest star of the night has to be, as always, our Dux of the school Chloe Wilson. We will be excitied to see 'where to from here?' for Chloe. Best of luck to all of our graduates. We will miss you!

Our Foundation Community Builder Kara Cox has asked all graduates to please send her a non -school email which we can use to keep in touch with our Alumni. If your graduating young person has not done that yet, can you please remind them to?

Finally, I took this snap today of some of our junior students enjoying the sun on our new -old seats. I say new - old, because these seats were rescued by Mr Kerry Ryan many years ago from the old Carrisbrook rugby ground. After languishing in the Stables for many years, we have finally started putting them to use around the grounds.

Have a great weekend.

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

It has been a very long time since I have written a blog as I have been out of the country more than I have been in it in the last six weeks. At the end of Term 3 and over the holidays I was lucky enough to be able to travel around Switzerland, Germany and Norway to meet with 17 different agents who represent international students. I also attended four, one day fairs where myself and daughter Bridie had the opportunity to present St Kevin's College as a destination for international students. The international student market is a very big industry in Europe because families place huge value on their students being able to move out into the world and see how other cultures live. It was incredible to be able to meet with agents, parents and some returnee students to understand the role that travel and the English language plays in the lives of young people from that part of the world. I found the people very warm and welcoming. They were eager to share their views and ideas with us and they were very tolerant of my non existent foreign language ability.....

At the assembly, I shared with our students my thoughts about how brave our international students are to come to the other side of the world at a young age to experience our way of life. A constant issue we have is trying to find homestay accommodation for students, so if you feel that that is something you would like to get involved in, please give June Campbell a call. This is a paid programme.

I have also just spent three days in Brisbane with members of the wider St Patrick's Parish and St Joseph's community looking at some of the concepts around education that are being adopted in Australia. We were very well looked after by our Australian host schools. The energy and excitement the communities we visited had for education was palpable and we were lucky to be able to glean several very helpful ideas from the trip. Special thanks must go to Eugen Dupu who coordinated the trip for us and to Glenn McConville from Brisbane Catholic Education who arranged the school visits for us.

I am looking forward to being able to work through our term 4 activities over the next two weeks at my own desk. Please keep checking the Facebook page for details about our end of year celebrations and please check with your senior students that they have looked at their end of year examination timetables for clashes. This is especially important for those sitting subjects out of their cohort lines.

Enjoy the long weekend.

God Bless

Jo

Principal's Comment

Kia Ora Kevinians and Supporters of the College,

Happy Friday! We seem to have been blessed with great weather for Tournament Week, and as tired students drag themselves back through the school gates, we are hearing some wonderful reports about how the sports events have gone. I have received two emails from different people this week from different parts of the South Island commenting on how well our students have represented our College.

Like most people, I love winning, but what I love even more is when, win or lose, our students rise to the occasion and are good ambassadors for their teams and the College. We have had some good results across the codes and the general feeling is that in all cases our students played their best games.

Next week, on the 5th September at 7pm in the library, we are holding our Caregiver consultation evening with regards to the Cambridge trial for senior curriculum which we are running for 2024. I encourage any parents and caregivers of Year 10 students to come along as this will affect your young person. During the evening we will share with you our rationale for this trial, the associated costs and the way the Cambridge system works. You will get a chance to ask questions, give feedback and hear from Heads of Department with regards to what they think Cambridge courses have to offer our students potentially in the long term.

Thank you to the two lovely young ladies who agreed to be my models today for the blog snap. I absolutely love this time of year when the grounds are filled with blossoms. It's a magic place to come to work.

Have a great weekend.

God Bless

Jo